Letter: Careful logging

My family was intimately involved in the logging business in Burma, Siam and Borneo in the years from 1860 until long after the Second World War and we introduced teak to the world ('No surrender in Sarawak', 1 December). Our hardwood extraction operations were always strictly monitored by the Conservator of Forests in each country and a steady regime of felling on a perpetual rotation basis was controlled by the management so as to ensure a constant regeneration of the forests. Nothing could have been more responsible than the attitude of the British administrators of the forests of those days.

The reputation of the Bombay Burma Trading Corporation and North Borneo Timbers and Wallace Brothers were deservedly synonymous with good husbandry of the rainforests in those countries and eveyone thought in terms of preservation.

Much of the good effects of the old style administration have been forgotten, or ill advisedly ...

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